Sexteto mistico (1921–1955)

Allegro non troppo – Adagio – Quasi allegro

The Sexteto mistico is well named. What aspect of it Villa-Lobos himself considered “mysterious” no one really knows – although it might be something to do with the apparent quotations heard towards the end of the first and third sections of the work. There is also a mystery about the true date of its composition. When it was published in Paris in 1957 it bore the dateline “Rio, 1917”. But every aspect of the style and colour of the piece suggests a later date and, indeed, there is a fragmentary sketch dated 1921 (and dedicated to José Pereira da Graça Aranha, one of the pioneers of Brazilian Modernism, whom he had just met). If the sextet was completed at that time it must have been destroyed or lost, since the composer reconstructed it in 1955, incorporating harmonic features which could have entered his vocabulary only after he settled in Paris in 1923. The 1917 dateline is thought to be the result of a faulty memory.   

Another mystery is what inspired the first ever score for flute, oboe, alto saxophone, guitar, celesta and harp. Oddly miscellaneous ensemble though it is, as Villa-Lobos so sensitively presents it the sound is both attractive and intriguing. The melodic interest is entrusted mainly to flute and oboe. The opening theme of the lyrical Allegro non troppo section, for example, is introduced by flute and repeated by oboe before they join in presenting the next main theme in partnership. The saxophone is by no means excluded from the exchange of ideas, however, and while the harp is concerned mainly with background colour, the guitar and celesta also have prominent roles.

Yet another mystery, in a work which seems to derive from the Brazilian choro, is the presence of a distinctly exotic middle section for a sensuously chromatic oboe with a dissonant ostinato accompaniment on the harp. After engaging the interest of the flute and saxophone alongside the oboe, the Adagio merges into the Quasi allegro, a short but tuneful finale which surely could not have been written before the composer encountered the music of Francis Poulenc.